For the past several months, multiple scammers have been targeting my websites with fraudulent "defamation" and "GDPR" complaints they submit to Google in order to bury my web pages in search results. After their complaints are rejected due to lack of merit, they simply do it again using other Google accounts or change the complaints slightly. I know this is happening because dozens of web pages will disappear for days or weeks at a time from SERPs. In fact, a few of them have bragged about doing this to me as "revenge" for blogging about their illegal spam.
Unlike DMCA complaints, this new generation of E.U. inspired complaints is not publicized. Scammers or competitors can simply say that your blog post or homepage contains "revenge porn" or otherwise, and get it removed from Google results while their legal team reviews the complaint, which can take ages...
It appears that domain authority is the greatest factor here. For example, websites like Reddit are more difficult to bury, and might only be down-ranked temporarily, compared to a personal blog which might be permanently down-ranked to the last page of SERPs for various queries even when no company or individual is mentioned anywhere on the page.
But even very high DA websites aren't immune; I've even had my X or Facebook profile removed from SERPs several dozen times in the past year, and I've also noticed that even government websites are being down-ranked too.
Google doesn't seem to care. They appear to have given up on offering comprehensive search results and have essentially outsourced content moderation to a handful of pre-approved corporate platforms and are treating all legal complaints as if they have merit.
Is this really the new normal, or is there anything to be done about fraudulent (anonymous) legal complaints that black hat fraudsters are abusing in mass now?
